![]() The third part of the solution is deploying these cost-competitive technologies, fast. As long as clean cement costs twice as much as traditionally manufactured cement, for example, the vast majority of buyers simply won’t choose it. Green Premiums need to be near, at, or below zero. I call the difference in price between any current technology and the clean alternative the “ Green Premium,” and it’s the key to how I see the world avoiding a climate disaster. Second, we have to drive the cost of new clean technologies down so they can compete, not just in rich countries but in all countries. First, we have to invent clean technologies to replace every emissions-intensive process we use today: a new way to make steel, to power airplanes, to fertilize fields. The solution to the everything, everywhere challenge is three-fold. Many countries in Europe and North America filled the atmosphere with carbon to achieve prosperity, and it is both unrealistic and unfair to expect everyone else to forgo a more comfortable life because that carbon turned out to change the climate. Low- and middle-income countries are building aggressively to achieve the standard of living their people aspire to-and they should be. Thinking globally instead of nationally reveals why we can’t solve climate change simply by using less energy. ![]() They have to work in all countries, or the temperature will continue to rise. So solutions can’t be dependent on unique conditions in a single country or region. China by itself emits more than one quarter. Three-quarters of the global population lives in emerging economies like Brazil, China, India, and South Africa, and although historically they played a very small role in causing climate change, they are now responsible for two-thirds of total greenhouse-gas emissions. Even if the US and Europe get there, however, we won’t have solved the problem. So, if you are reading this over lunch on a plastic device in your climate-controlled concrete-and-steel office building that you took a bus to get to, you begin to see how more or less every aspect of our lives contributes to the problem.Įverywhere: More than 70 countries have committed to reaching net zero, including big polluters like the United States and the European Union. There are currently no cement plants in the world, and exactly one steel plant, that don’t produce CO 2. The sector with the most emissions, 30 percent of the total, is manufacturing-making the things that modern life depends on, like cement, plastic, and steel. Lithium-ion batteries don’t do much about the emissions from long-distance travel in airplanes, cargo ships, and heavy-duty trucks.Īgriculture and buildings account for 21 and 7 percent of emissions, respectively. But cars account for less than half of the transportation sector’s 16 percent of emissions. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries have made it possible to see a net-zero future for car travel. But electricity accounts for only 26 percent of global emissions. People automatically think of electricity, where there’s a path to zero because wind and solar are now cheaper than fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the answer is everything and everywhere.Įverything: Virtually every human activity produces greenhouse gas emissions. To understand what it will take to get to zero, we need to start by asking where the 51 billion tons of emissions come from. I still believe we can avoid a climate disaster-if we devote the next generation to mobilizing the largest crisis response in human history. ![]() Over the next three, we need to go much further, much faster. In the past decade, we finally got going. And some of the clean technologies we need are still very far from becoming practical, cost-effective solutions we can deploy at scale. If you follow the annual IPCC reports, you’ve watched as the scenarios for limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius become increasingly remote. The world still needs to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions from 51 billion tons to zero, but global emissions continue to increase every year. This progress makes me optimistic about the future.īut I am also realistic about the present. Since then, an influx of private and public investment has accelerated innovation faster than I dared hope.
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